COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[Pericles]

I'm strongly pro-education. Having school back to normal is crucial for not only academic achievement but also social development. This holds true from kindergarten all the way through college.

Back in March, I would have canceled school. Damn right I would! But this can't go on forever.

America's children deserve nothing less than the very best from our schools.

Everything we do these days is going to be quite a challenge, but we'll be better off if we can rip off this Band-Aid.

It's pretty similar to March though in that there's widespread community transmission. Schooling is important, but there's no way it'll be safe with the situation being as it is currently. And the way to get case numbers down quickly enough to start reopening some stuff and not to have an agonising drawn-out economic & health disaster is to go for a hard lockdown.

[Pericles]

It's pretty similar to March though in that there's widespread community transmission. Schooling is important, but there's no way it'll be safe with the situation being as it is currently. And the way to get case numbers down quickly enough to start reopening some stuff and not to have an agonising drawn-out economic & health disaster is to go for a hard lockdown.

America had a hard lockdown for 2 months. It didn't work.

No it didn't. A few states like New York had hard lockdowns, while of course those started way too late and Cuomo made a huge mistake with care homes, that did stop widespread community transmission. States like Florida and Arizona went with soft lockdowns that didn't actually decrease their curves, and then opened up too early when the situation hadn't actually improved from when they went into lockdown.

European countries generally went for hard lockdowns, so their curves actually decreased rather than just plateauing.

[Pericles]

It's pretty similar to March though in that there's widespread community transmission. Schooling is important, but there's no way it'll be safe with the situation being as it is currently. And the way to get case numbers down quickly enough to start reopening some stuff and not to have an agonising drawn-out economic & health disaster is to go for a hard lockdown.

America had a hard lockdown for 2 months. It didn't work.

That was not a hard lockdown. That was 50 states doing 50 different things.

Do you think Spain had a hard lockdown?

Spain did actually drive down their case curve pretty hard and relatively fast. No one policy is going to solve it forever, and it seems Spain made mistakes in recent weeks that caused their case numbers to rise (their case numbers are not more than double the numbers in the first spike, as has been seen in the US though).

[Pericles]

The anti-vaccers comprise more than a third of our total population, and most of them are Republicans:

Poll: 35% of Americans, most Republicans would reject COVID-19 vaccine

More than one-third of U.S. adults and a majority of Republicans would not receive a free, government-approved COVID-19 vaccine if one was presently available, a Gallup survey showed Friday.

According to the poll, 35% of U.S. adults said they would not get the vaccine, compared to 65% who said they would. The share was the exact same 65/35 split among both men and women.

The age group that expressed the most skepticism about a vaccine were those between 50 and 64 years old (59%) -- and the group that was most accepting of a vaccine were between 18 and 29 (76%).

By race, the survey found that two-thirds of White Americans (67%) and 59% of non-Whites would take the vaccine, despite the virus more heavily affecting the Black and Latino communities.

How much herd immunity is achievable with only 65% of the population? This is pretty worrying.

[Pericles]

No further stimulus is coming from Congress:

https://twitter.com/BresPolitico/status/1292871439243268098

Many Americans are going to experience significant financial distress over the next three months because of Congress' (and Trump's) the Republican Party's inability to act.

Ftfy. Democrats had this sorted months ago, but Republicans were too incompetent and evil to do the easy, necessary thing.

[Pericles]

I think it was possible to keep schools reopened even if wasn't the greatest idea, However doing it with 0 restrictions was stupid.

The main changes that really need to be made in schools is better ventilation and better access to sinks. I'm the biggest germaphobe in the world, but I don't think kids need to go to school in a hazmat suit.

There's no way schools will be safe when community transmission is so widespread. Until new case numbers are pushed down to a low level, most activities will be too risky.

[Pericles]

I think it was possible to keep schools reopened even if wasn't the greatest idea, However doing it with 0 restrictions was stupid.

The main changes that really need to be made in schools is better ventilation and better access to sinks. I'm the biggest germaphobe in the world, but I don't think kids need to go to school in a hazmat suit.

There's no way schools will be safe when community transmission is so widespread. Until new case numbers are pushed down to a low level, most activities will be too risky.

Are you suggesting that all school districts should consider going fully online for the fall semester? I am only beginning to imagine the consequences that will have for many families and students across the country. Of course, opening schools "normally" and in-person is fraught with its own difficulties, so we have a truly tough situation here.

Not all school districts, it might be safe in states that have it contained. It's a complicated call but perhaps for states like New York they can open schools, though maybe then they should be more cautious with other parts of their reopening (especially those activities that are higher risk and lower priority like indoor bars). Schools also should probably have some social distancing measures in place. In states like Georgia and Florida it's idiotic to have any physical schooling because the outbreak is so bad. Ideally they should go into lockdown so the new case numbers actually go down to an acceptable level, and then retry their reopening and do it properly. Realistically though it's just going to be a grim plateau of high case numbers and deaths that both hampers any significant reopening and is a tragic outcome from a public health perspective.

[Pericles]

Maybe it's a bit too early to say this with certainty, but the last week really seems consistent with the idea that we are - once again - plateauing at a disastrously high number of daily cases.

It seems logical, after all why would case numbers suddenly go down again? Very little has been done to actually stop the spread.

[Pericles]

Maybe it's a bit too early to say this with certainty, but the last week really seems consistent with the idea that we are - once again - plateauing at a disastrously high number of daily cases.

It seems logical, after all why would case numbers suddenly go down again? Very little has been done to actually stop the spread.

Why did they eventually go down so dramatically in Sweden?
Once a certain threshold of infection is reached, case numbers will inevitably go down over time just due to partial herd immunity.

Sweden is nowhere close to herd immunity and already has a higher per capita death toll than the US. Cases have gone down because the Swedes have gone to their holiday houses in the countryside and social contact is down, cases and deaths will go back up in the coming months.

[Pericles]

Awful. At this rate we will be well over 200,000 deaths by late September or early October.

I think the CDC predicted the US will exceed 200,000 by Labor Day. In reality though there have already been over 200,000 excess deaths in the US and the official death toll is almost certainly undercounting the full extent of the tragedy.

[Pericles]

During the Ebola pandemic, Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie enacted quarantines that applied only to people who had been exposed to Ebola patients. This meant very few people were even quarantined. Yet a lot of people back then said this was much too strict. Dr. Fauci even said this was much too strict and urged only monitoring, not a quarantine. When Florida implemented monitoring, some people even said that was too strict.

So why do we now have these much stricter measures that have lasted 5 whole months, and nobody dares to publicly oppose them?

This is an incredibly dumb argument and you should feel bad. Ebola is a separate virus from Covid-19. Not all infectious diseases require the same response. Covid-19's specific characteristics make the high level of restrictions appropriate, not the mere fact that it is an infectious disease.

[Pericles]

Humans are social animals. Not just college students, but people of any age. Colleges have no business punishing students for attending parties off campus.

I would have been horrified at these parties back in April. But not now. People need normal social interaction after being isolated for 5 months.

"$1,000+ deaths a day is an acceptable price to pay for normal life" That's the choice you are making.

[Pericles]

"$1,000+ deaths a day is an acceptable price to pay for normal life" That's the choice you are making.

As opposed to the 2,000 we were seeing under full lockdowns.

Please explain your novel epidemiological theory as to how reducing social contact increases cases and deaths from Covid-19.

[Pericles]

Have we all died yet?

180k+ people have died within 6 months, including my husband's uncle....

That’s unfortunate. And I’m sorry to hear that.

It doesn’t make the lockdowns justified, though. If you want to do anecdotal, I’m living proof of the damage from social distancing and isolating nonsense.

You're still alive and posting on the Atlas forum. So you're better off than the victims of delayed lockdowns and premature reopenings.

[Pericles]

I also even opposed Virginia moving into Phase 3 because I feared a huge spike in cases.. and what do you know..it happened lol.

But right now I would keep VA in phase 3. The damage has been done and we can not reverse.

Virginia never had a huge spike in cases.  We’ve been well below the national average for cases per capita since early June. 

But it’s actually been a bit of a problem, in that Virginia has also not seen any decline in cases since then.  We’ve been stuck around 1,000 new cases per day for almost two months.  This is still below the per capita rate of about thirty other states, but it seems to have left the state paralyzed as to which direction we should be moving.

Virginia's numbers are actually pretty bad, but the bar is set so low by the response in other US states, so it wasn't Florida-levels of awful numbers.

[Pericles]

Students who are irresponsible enough to put the lives of others and the well-being of their entire community at risk should be punished. This is a serious situation and not a joke, excess deaths are well over 200,000 already. Prioritising individual selfishness and 'rights' above all else is creating a dysfunctional and worse-off society.

[Pericles]

Students who are irresponsible enough to put the lives of others and the well-being of their entire community at risk should be punished. This is a serious situation and not a joke, excess deaths are well over 200,000 already. Prioritising individual selfishness and 'rights' above all else is creating a dysfunctional and worse-off society.

Eh, they should be given their money back considering how expensive tuition is here.

Well there should be some form of punishment.

[Pericles]

Students who are irresponsible enough to put the lives of others and the well-being of their entire community at risk should be punished. This is a serious situation and not a joke, excess deaths are well over 200,000 already. Prioritising individual selfishness and 'rights' above all else is creating a dysfunctional and worse-off society.

Eh, they should be given their money back considering how expensive tuition is here.

Well there should be some form of punishment.

Expulsion is a punishment.

Yeah I'm not clear on the details, just as long as there is some consequence.

[Pericles]

Who are we kidding? Throughout the summer, people of all ages, all over America (maybe the world) have been socializing almost like normal - without masks or social distancing. Maybe not everyone, but a vast majority. This goes back to probably July, maybe earlier.

Is limiting what college students do really gonna stop covid? There's so many places it can spread that you can't stop it that way. Plus, I'm pretty sure herd immunity is already starting to appear, even in states like South Dakota that were only recently hot spots. Herd immunity has swept New York and Arizona for sure.

1. Reducing social contact reduces the spread of Covid. This basic stuff should be obvious so far into the pandemic.
2. No?! Where is this coming from?
3. More like social distancing temporarily reduced the spread.

One of the most dangerous habits in this pandemic has been the reliance on wishful thinking over evidence. This post demonstrates that in spades.

Covid is not just going to disappear. Instead social contact should be limited (based on the circumstances-you don't need a full lockdown when there are few cases but some distancing is still necessary), and then when the vaccine arrives the critical mass (ideally everyone who can get it, but this is unrealistic) needs to get vaccinated so actual, safe herd immunity is achieved.

[Pericles]

So they want us to believe 50% of people who went to Sturgis got covid.

That would be absurd. Fortunately, that's not anywhere close to what it actually says. It estimates 250k cases as a result of Sturgis.

Grossly oversimplifying: if 2,500 people at Sturgis had it, and each of them spread it to ten people while they were there, and each of those 25,000 infected two more people over the week after, and each of those people infected two more the next week, and each of them two more the next week (three weeks, bringing us from the end of Sturgis to now) you get 250k cases.

I was just going to say the same. Bandit's post misunderstands how this stuff works.

[Pericles]

https://twitter.com/ZekeJMiller/status/1309529806145490945

Florida reported 2,851 new cases yesterday.

Good. The more overwhelmed hospitals, the better for Biden.

I have to disagree with you, that's an awful sentiment. It would be tragic if Florida has a third wave, hopefully the suffering is minimized.

[Pericles]

Reading this article, DeSantis' move looks even worse. It is disgusting that DeSantis is putting his citizens' lives at risks as a political move. And this also suggests it was an impulse decision, and DeSantis doesn't have a well-thought out plan for how to reopen Florida-

President Donald Trump found a new applause line at his Florida rally this week: “Normal life. O! I love normal life. We want to get back to normal life.” The next day, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis moved to deliver on that promise — or the appearance of it.

The Republican governor of the president’s must-win battleground responded 24 hours later by canceling all state coronavirus restrictions Friday without warning, catching local governments and epidemiologists off-guard amid their own strategies to keep the coronavirus contained.

Furthermore, the order is even worse than it looks because it also repeals all fines for not following mask mandates. It makes no sense to have almost no measures to limit the spread with thousands of new cases every day and still around 100 deaths every day. Hopefully Floridians still social distance and take precautions voluntarily so it doesn't get out of hand, but the signs aren't good imo.

[Pericles]

It didn't need to be political to save hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, of lives. This is the latest example of the Republican Party-not Trump in particular but the whole party-being a dangerous ideologically extremist outlier, incapable of good governance. Hopefully they receive a landslide defeat, and this election can begin to repair the damage and shift the Republican Party into becoming a sane centre-right party.

[Pericles]

There’s virtually no country in the Western world that has succeeded at truly controlling the virus.  The only realistic policy that would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives would have been vaccine challenge trials. 

That is not true, do I really have to explain this to you?

[Pericles]

With Florida throwing its doors back open, how long will it take before we start noticing a spike in cases? About two weeks?

Not gonna happen. Guaranteed.

You can't just wish Covid away.